Carnival erupted on Friday in Rio with raucous street parties that brought together cheering, drum-beating locals with sweaty foreigners escaping snowbound cities.
Thousands of Carnival revelers flooded the cobbled streets of the bohemian Santa Teresa neighborhood in skimpy costumes bordering on blasphemous.
At the “Carmelitas” party — named after a nearby convent — groups of young women dressed as sexy police in cutoffs and tank tops, while grown men who donned baby outfits, sucked on pacifiers and showered themselves with talcum powder.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The drum line, whose powerful samba beat kept the crowd dancing in the sweltering heat, was made up of young men dressed as nuns, as were many in the crowd.
Friday marked the start of dozens of the eccentric, pulsating street parties that are the heart and soul of Rio’s pre-Lent festival.
The seaside city is opening its arms to more than 700,000 visitors this year, tourism officials estimated, and the hottest weather in five decades has done nothing to slow down the madness.
Carly Oboudiyat, a 25-year-old medical student from New York, left mountains of snow to enjoy white sand beaches and raucous blocos — as Rio’s Carnival street parties are known.
“I’m loving it, it’s fantastic going from freezing winds to 111-degree [44ºC] weather,” Oboudiyat said as she took in the surroundings near Ipanema beach, a cold beer in hand and beads of sweat on her forehead.
Samba dancers were still rehearsing on Friday for the start of competition in dazzling parades of scantily clad revelers and towering floats.
This year, a spunky seven-year-old girl has been promoted to the coveted role of Carnival drum corps queen — something normally reserved for sultry models.
Elsewhere, however, Brazilian Carnival was holding on fast to tradition. In Minas Gerais state north of Rio, the mayor of San Lorenzo banned Brazilian rap and funk music at street parties, saying the styles promote violence and vulgarity. Offenders face up to six months in jail.
In the colonial town of Olinda in northeastern Brazil, anyone playing loud music in their house will face a fine of US$3,800.
Officials said they wanted nothing interfering with the music in the streets.
Amid the partying in Rio, authorities this year were clamping down on small offenses such as urinating in public, trying to bring a semblance of order to Rio’s crammed streets and beaches.
Having won the bid to host the 2016 Olympics, Rio and its ambitious young mayor want to show the world the city of 6 million has the ability to safely host major events and contain drug-gang violence.
Mayor Eduardo Paes is a year into his “shock of order” campaign targeting petty crimes, and Carnival is his new showcase.
As Paes handed over a giant, glittering ceremonial key to the city to the Carnival King Momo — who rules the city until Ash Wednesday — the mayor made it clear who really was in charge. He stood before journalists holding a sign underscoring his anti-urine campaign that read “Come on, don’t pee here, OK?”
Paul O’Neil, a 32-year-old from Brisbane, Australia, visiting Rio for the first time, said he so far was impressed with the sense of security.
“It’s great to get here and see what the hype is all about,” he said. “It seems much safer than I thought it would be — touch wood.”
Partiers used to absolute freedom during the five-day Carnival bash have been rudely awakened by an army of unarmed khaki-clad civil guards — Paes’ shock troops in his small-crimes campaign.
Police have already arrested nearly 100 people for using the gutters as toilets — something tolerated in the past at beer-guzzling street parties. At least two offenders were women.
Beaches no longer resemble full-service bazaars with greasy snacks delivered on command under a sprawl of rented umbrellas.
Beach football by the sea? After 5pm only please.
“They’re trying to get rid of the grit that gives Rio its flavor,” complained Marcus Paulo Reis, a 36-year-old businessman sipping beer at lunch this week in the beachside Arpoador neighborhood.
However, there appeared to be a silent majority glad to get some peace, even as international headliners poured into Rio, including Madonna, Beyonce and Alicia Keys.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
‘TOXIC CLIMATE’: ‘I don’t really recognize Labour anymore... The idea that you can implement far-right ideas in order to stop the far right is nonsense,’ a protester said Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched through central London to protest against the far right, weeks ahead of local elections and six months after Britain saw one of its largest far-right demonstrations. Organized by hundreds of civic groups, including trade unions, anti-racism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, Saturday’s Together Alliance event was billed as the biggest in UK history to counter right-wing extremism. A separate pro-Palestinian march had also converged with the main rally. While organizers claimed 500,000 had turned out in total, the police gave a figure of about 50,000. Protesters carrying placards with slogans such as
RSS